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Ask HN: Who is quitting? (July 2026)

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Re: Ask HN: Who is quitting? (July 2026)

#131

Post by throwytowee123 »

I did. Now 3 years have gone by.

I quit because like many here I was totally unfulfilled with what I was doing day-to-day. Feeling like I'm wasting my life away for a (not even great) paycheck.

I was thrilled with the freedom and agency it brought me, and had a long list of things I wanted to do. I went to see family and friends I hand't seen in a while, then took a multi-month trip in the mountains while reading, learning and programming whatever I wanted to.

Then had a baby, which wasn't planned, but turned into the most important and meaningful thing in my life. Time went by, the market went down, AI, etc. I started trying finding a job about a year in, and it's really tough. Even worse, everything I hated about work seems to be generally worse now everywhere.

Not sure what to do.

Re: Ask HN: Who is quitting? (July 2026)

#132

Post by tryauuum »

jongjong wrote: post #99

Quitting is a bad move. You should just quiet quit and start acting and don't take anything too seriously. Probably all your colleagues feel the same way anyway. Everyone is just hustling and bullshitting at this point. Everyone is laser focused on how to maximize their lock-in factor whilst putting in as little effort as possible. Because it's what works. You can't avoid the bullshit unfortunately. Whatever company…

"lock-in factor"?

Re: Ask HN: Who is quitting? (July 2026)

#133

Post by playorizaya »

I was just thinking a "Who is firing?" thread would be more informative than a "Who is hiring?" one in 2026+

That would make this one - "Who is quitting?" the more useful counter to "Who wants to be hired?" (because it's easier for candidates to get placed coming directly from another company rather than hiring someone unemployed).

The hiring manager becomes the firing manager - this is your new hiring pipeline... Or... firing pre-pipeline... wait now I'm confused

Re: Ask HN: Who is quitting? (July 2026)

#134

Post by iceflinger »

A recent comment on a thread here I can't remember mentioned someone quitting to become a diesel mechanic 5 years ago, I think that finally pushed me to seriously considering entering the trades. I think I always wanted to eventually, but could never make the jump when tech felt like a 'natural' environment to be a part of, that's increasingly just no longer the case and I don't feel welcome.

Re: Ask HN: Who is quitting? (July 2026)

#135

Post by scarecrowbob »

I quit in '23. I didn't have F-U money (heck, I don't have running water) but I did inherit some money from my parents when they passed, enough to buy a shack on some land and to get my living expenses low enough that running sound and playing music could pay the bills.

I will note that I did quit before my parents passed on, mostly because my kids (I am 48 and had them young) had graduated college and I realized I wasn't going to make enough in my remaining working years to both buy a house where I want to live and fully retire.

So I quit and lived in my truck and did stage hand gigs that payed a better day rate than I got programming, even though they were only a couple of days a month.

I am in EMT school because I like to do first aid at festivals and support my local free clinic. One of my recording clients just left with the masters of his album he cut out at my off-grid, solar-powered recording studio.

In additions to the realizations about the reality of retirement, I just got tired of answer pages to reboot a server at 1am because my boss was to cheap to offload some containers to a second server.

Also, I enjoy programming (this last winter I re-learned C to work with ESP32), but watching the less-talented folks at the biz use it as a crutch to make ever cruftier, bug riddled stuff made me a little repulsed.

It didn't help that I was doing WordPress customization/hosting/troubleshooting for large institutional clients- for as much money as it made me, it is was still a towering pile of shit that required being able to really work all parts of the stack including layer-zero issues.

So here I am, Dale-Gribbling it up in the middle of nowhere, unemployed, unable to tell the difference between massive inflation and massive gains in my portfolio, sitting a rural shack in Colorado surrounded by a bunch of musical instruments.

Yall should quit while there is still time, if you can.

Re: Ask HN: Who is quitting? (July 2026)

#136

Post by eudamoniac »

pelagicAustral wrote: post #61
c_hastings wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Imagine the reverse. A butcher buys a Linux computer and tries to become a programmer in a week. Struggles with getting nested loops to work, so quits. Not saying you should be a butcher, but a week and no training is a difficult approach.

I think, to be honest, even with more training, I was already too old... A hindquarter is heavy as hell, I think I kind permanently busted my back just shuffling it around, nevermind cutting a shin bone...

Unless you're like 70 or crippled, you are able to train your deadlift to 300 pounds at the very least. Strength is not reserved for the young

Re: Ask HN: Who is quitting? (July 2026)

#137

Post by eudamoniac »

skeeter2020 wrote: post #60
louwrentius wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Quiet quit aka : do the actual amount of work you are are paid for and don't let yourself get ripped off due to 'pressures'.

most people are paid as full time salary employees, aka 35-40 hours/week. You may feel that you personally do way more work than everyone else (80%+ plus of people do) but you don't get to define what "the actual amount of work you are paid for" is. There's usually lots of opportunities to find time to learn or go on tangents in non-terrible jobs, but unless your boss is quiet quitting as well, they - and your cowork…

The actual amount of work someone is paid for is the minimum amount of work that will not result in being fired.

Re: Ask HN: Who is quitting? (July 2026)

#138

Post by irishcoffee »

ryandrake wrote: post #126
irishcoffee wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My spouse and I both work. We also live so far within our means that either one of us could quit tomorrow and our lifestyle would not change. Is that privilege? I consider it basic fiscal responsibility.

We should all aspire to that, but by that measurement, a huge percentage of the population don't have "basic fiscal responsibility." I know exactly one person who could quit their job tomorrow and not have to change his lifestyle. It's extremely rare, and I think qualifies as "privilege."

To qualify this: yes I think anyone that can just walk away from this job because its tuesday and they don't like tuesdays is extremely privileged, there is no doubt. I was/am speaking purely from a financial perspective.

If one cannot live within their means and save up an emergency fund of ~6 months, I don't think that is unprivileged, that is just not responsible.

Can everyone do this? Probably not, life is hard. Have most people made a series of life decisions for which they not longer want to be culpable, instead complaining about how hard life is? Almost always. There are always edge cases, and reasons we need a solid social safety net, I advocate for social safety nets. Most people just spend too much money and bitch that they're paycheck-to-paycheck.

Re: Ask HN: Who is quitting? (July 2026)

#139

Post by eudamoniac »

ryandrake wrote: post #126
irishcoffee wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My spouse and I both work. We also live so far within our means that either one of us could quit tomorrow and our lifestyle would not change. Is that privilege? I consider it basic fiscal responsibility.

We should all aspire to that, but by that measurement, a huge percentage of the population don't have "basic fiscal responsibility." I know exactly one person who could quit their job tomorrow and not have to change his lifestyle. It's extremely rare, and I think qualifies as "privilege."

Yeah, a huge percentage don't.

Re: Ask HN: Who is quitting? (July 2026)

#140

Post by AnimalMuppet »

Not this month. I retired in February.

I retired because I couldn't do it any more. After forty years, I no longer had the focus to keep "shoving my brain through concrete walls" for eight hours a day.

That's the immediate reason that I quit. But there's been this discontent that's been slowly building for several years. Maybe it's because of seeing too much management chaos and blundering, and then expecting the workers to sacrifice to make things work out. Maybe because it really sunk in how much management didn't actually care. Or maybe it was because of me - because I was slowly burning out and getting old and tired. But for whatever reason, it began to feel hollow - just going through the motions, rather than changing the world.

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